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p In ideology, as in politics, anti-communism has many faces. The ideology, like the politics of anti-communism, does not stand still, but is being improved and adapted to the changing conditions. The general theoretical law that social consciousness is a reflection of social being also applies to reactionary theories, with the characteristic difference that this reflection carries the stamp of the bourgeoisie’s objective class interests, and the increasing subjective strivings of its ideologists to cover up these interests with the aid of “95 striking garb”.  [96•1  Among the latest anti-communist concepts in vogue in the West, which are designed to give “theoretical” backing to the imperialist anti-communist policy of eroding socialism from inside, are the following:

p 1) the “stages-of-growth” theory produced by the US politician and sociologist, Walt Rostow;

p 2) the “one industrial society” theory, produced by the well-known French sociologist Raymond Aron and others;

p 3) the “convergence” theory;

p 4) the “evolutionary” concept or theory of “evolution”, set out by Zbigniew Brzezinski and others; and

p 5) the “de-ideologisation” theory.

p All these may be classified as bourgeois-liberal forms of the ideology of anti-communism. Their exponents make a point of avoiding sharp, primitive, gross attacks on socialism and Marxism-Leninism, but these theories are still anticommunist in content because they distort the substance and laws underlying the development of capitalism and that of socialism and objectively serve the reactionary plans for restoring capitalism in the countries of the socialist community.

p These theories sprang from the following processes: the search for new and more effective ideological means of class struggle against socialism in view of its growing successes, and the ever more obvious collapse of the old anti-communist propaganda myths; imperialist fears in face of the growing economic, technical and military might of the socialist community; fear of the inexorable historical destruction of capitalism and the consequent urge, in defiance of historical logic, to achieve imperialist goals by any means if a straightforward frontal attack will not work.

p One book that was widely circulated in the West in the 1960s was Walt Rostow’s The Stages of Economic Growth. A Non-Communist Manifesto.  [96•2 

p It presents a distorted picture of mankind’s social progress and for that purpose the author uses artificially constructed “general stages” of development as a yardstick for social progress (for many years Rostow was chairman of the Policy Planning Council at the US State Department, and his 97 works are usually closely connected with the needs of US policy).

p But what is the link between Rostow’s theory and anticommunism? The first is that the author of the “stages-of-growth” theory pretentiously claims to have produced an alternative to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of social progress. He says that “this system is to challenge and supplant Marxism as a way of looking at modern history”.  [97•1  Consequently, the “stages-of-growth” theory is aimed directly against Marxism-Leninism, notably, the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of social development as the history of formation, development and succession of socio-economic formations. Rostow writes: “As against our stages—the traditional society; the preconditions; take-off; maturity; and high massconsumption—we are setting, then, Marx’s feudalism; bourgeois capitalism; Socialism and Communism.”  [97•2 

p By rejecting the concept of socio-economic formations, and discarding the scientific theory of social development, which presents the history of society as a continuity of qualitatively distinct stages and which regards every formation as a coherent organism, Rostow tries to inject into the theory of social development the chaos and arbitrariness of which it has been purged by Marxism.

p The Marxist theory of social development, Lenin said, had eliminated subjectivism from the study of history, and first saw it as a coherent process governed by definite laws despite its immense variety and contradictoriness.  [97•3 

p Marxism regards the development of the productive forces as the “highest criterion of social progress”.  [97•4  But what should be borne in mind is, first, that “according to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life.... Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase.”  [97•5  Second (and this is very important), the working people are the main productive force. Lenin wrote: “The primary productive force of human society as a whole, is the 98 workers, the working people.”  [98•1  He went on to give a scientific definition of “productive forces”, and included the mass of working people in it, connecting the development of the productive forces with progress in the development of social relations and the condition of the mass of working people.  [98•2 

p Consequently, when considering the objective criterion of social progress account needs to be taken of the state of the development of all the productive forces, that is, without reducing them to machinery, and so also taking account of the nature of social relations, above all the relations of production, prevailing in society. Concerning the relative progressiveness of socio-economic formations as stages of history, apart from analysing the principal criterion of progress—the development of the productive forces—’there is need for a broad comparative systematic analysis of every aspect of the social organism, beginning from the basis, that is, the relations of production, and including an analysis of the political and ideological superstructure, and the state of every form of social consciousness. This kind of scientific and comprehensive approach will alone show which socio-economic formation is more progressive. It is this analysis that provides irrefutable proof that socialism is fundamentally superior to capitalism.

p Rostow’s approach to social progress is uncommonly. narrow and one-sided. Quite arbitrarily he reduces the criterion of social progress to an aggregation of some technico-economic data, ignoring the fact that men—working people—are society’s main productive force, ignoring their relations of production, that is, the basis which determines the qualitative character of every stage of social development. Rostow’s stages-of-growth scheme distorts the real line of social development. He speculates on the USSR’s temporary lag in technical development behind the USA in the 1950s, a lag that was determined by highly important concrete historical factors (the low starting level of the development in the first socialist country after the October Revolution; the devastation caused by the fascist invasion), and with the aid of unscientific manipulations seeks to present US capitalism as a higher “stage of growth” as compared with socialism, 99 putting the USA on the highest, fifth stage of his scheme, thereby apologetically converting US capitalism into a kind of ideal “model” for the further development of all the countries, including the socialist ones. He calls this model the stage of “high mass-consumption”. Quite apart from the fact that Rostow completely ignores the deep social antagonisms rending capitalist, primarily US, society, and the basic flaws of state-monopoly capitalism, his scheme is a gross distortion of the very nature and prospects of socialism.

p What then is socialism, according to the “stages-of-growth” theory? Rostow says it is nothing more than an aberration of history, a kind of “disease” of society when it fails to modernise effectively and in good time.  [99•1  Concerning the prospects before socialism, Rostow believes that these run towards reversion to capitalism. He writes: “In its essence, communism is likely to wither in the age of high mass-consumption.”  [99•2 

p This altogether arbitrary conclusion, which is not backed up by any scientific reasoning, fits in very nicely with Rostow’s practical recommendations, which he gives as the foreign-policy expert of US imperialism. He recommends that an effort should be made to “work with the forces of nationalism and liberalism which may emerge within the communist bloc”.  [99•3 

p Rostow’s theory provides fresh evidence that the imperialist theorists’ attempts “scientifically” to refute MarxismLeninism are part and parcel of imperialist policy.

p In methodological basis, which ignores the specifics of the relations of production under capitalism and under socialism, the “stages-of-growth” theory is akin to another sociological theory which distorts the nature and prospects of the socialist system, namely, the theory of “one industrial society”, which has been much written about in the capitalist countries.

p Among its advocates is the French sociologist, Raymond Aron, the author of a number of works on the development of the industrial society, notably a book entitled New 100 Lectures on the Industrial Society  [100•1 ; the French economist, F. Perroux, the author of a three-volume work, entitled Peaceful Coexistence; the American sociologist, Robert Angell; the American economists Walter Buckingham, Simon Kuznets, and others. They all insist that capitalism and socialism have the same socio-economic character, and that modern civilisation has a common industrial basis. Their main method is speculatively to exaggerate out of all proportion the superficial features which are common for both systems and to neglect the essential, law-governed and rock-bottom elements which distinguish the two systems from each other.

p Aron says that this question of the industrial society is “a manner of avoiding from the outset the socialism-capitalism conflict and to consider socialism and capitalism to be two modalities of the same genre.... I am not concerned with the question of the social consequences of the capitalist system, but with the question of the social consequences of the industrial society as a whole.”  [100•2 

p This popular Western theory is an indication of the thorough recasting of the methods being used in the ideological fight against socialism, and this is due to the successes in socialist construction, which have made the bourgeois ideologists’ fight against socialism extremely difficult. It is no longer possible to deny the successes of socialism. Is it, for instance, possible to conceal from the world that the USSR was the great power that pioneered the exploration of space? It has become a risky business to blacken a country capable of fabricating the most complex automatic stations, which return to the Earth with Moon soil, and that is why the ideologists of anti-communism are forced to substitute subtle falsification for their primitive lies.

p What then is false about the “one industrial society” concept?

p First of all, it is methodologically untenable because it takes the technological approach to economic phenomena. “Industrial” is a concept which designates a definite stage in 101 the development of the productive forces, but it does not contain any qualitative characteristic of the socio-economic formation and does not indicate the basis, the relations of production which prevail in a given country.

p But this is extremely important because a great deal depends, including the social consequences of the scientific and technical revolution, on whether socialist or private property in the means of production prevails in a country. Lenin wrote: “On all sides, at every step one comes across problems which man is quite capable of solving immediately, but capitalism is in the way. It has amassed enormous wealth—and has made men the slaves of this wealth.”  [101•1  Lenin’s view has been fully borne out. In their drive for profits, the capitalists manage increasingly to intensify the labour of workers and intellectuals. Since the 19th century, the rate of exploitation of the working people has gone up by 300 per cent. A great many industrial and office workers are made redundant. Thus, in 1963, the USA had over 3 million “technological unemployed”, that is, men and women made redundant through automation and mechanisation. The efforts of great numbers of scientists and the results of scientific and technical progress largely go to serve the purposes of imperialist aggression.

p There is no comparison between the social order in such an industrial country and the social order in a socialist industrialised country, where the industrial facilities are used for the benefit of the whole of society, where the whole economy is developed according to plan, where planning is geared to the interests of the working people and the satisfaction of their social requirements, where the threat of unemployment has been eliminated, where the nature of man’s labour has been fundamentally changed because men work for themselves and for their socialist society, where individual welfare and educational and cultural levels keep pace with the growth of the social wealth, and where not only the material but also the spiritual requirements of man are being increasingly satisfied.

p But it is not only a matter of the “one industrial society” theory being methodologically untenable or ignoring the aggregate of relations of production prevailing in a country. The thesis that the two systems are similar, which denies their 102 fundamental distinctions, suggests reactionary political conclusions. From this thesis it follows that even today, at its final stage, capitalism is just as progressive as socialism, that it has a future and that it is marching in step with history. The basic propositions of the “one industrial society” theory suggest that socialism is not the only progressive system, which is superseding capitalism; the “similarity” of systems also suggests the false conclusion that class struggle and revolutions are useless and futile, a conclusion that tends to unnerve the working people in the capitalist countries. We find, therefore, that the “one industrial society” theory is likewise spearheaded against socialism and Marxism-Leninism.

p Like the “stages-of-growth” theory it is unhistorical because it is also aimed against the scientific conception of social progress. Ignoring the basis of society^the aggregate of relations of production—this theory rejects the concept of socio-economic formation, a key scientific category of historical materialism. This implies rejection of the essence of the materialist view of history, which Marx so brilliantly set out in his preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy. Lenin stressed that Marx “was the first to put sociology on a scientific basis by establishing the concept of the economic formation of society as the sum-total of given production relations, by establishing the fact that the development of such formations is a process of natural history”.  [102•1 

p The “one industrial society” concept is also inapplicable because it distorts the overall picture of the modern world, obscuring the main social distinctions between the countries of the globe. By bringing out the criterion of industrialism, it tends to divide the countries of the modern world into industrial countries which are developed “in general”, and countries which are backward and underdeveloped “in general”. This attempt to obscure the fundamental distinction between the industrialised capitalist countries and the industrialised socialist countries is damaging to the future of the newly-liberated national states. In this case, the “one industrial society” theory echoes the Maoist theory of “the poor” and “the rich” countries, which also obliterates the qualitative and fundamental distinction between the industrialised 103 capitalist and the industrialised socialist countries and is designed to alienate the developing countries and the national liberation movement from the Soviet Union and the whole socialist community.

p Finally, and this is highly important, the “one industrial society” theory helps to distort the prospects for the further development of both capitalism and of socialism and in particular to suggest that they could converge.

p Much has been written by Soviet scientists about the theory of convergence. It is a theory which, in objective content, regardless of the subjective views and motivations of its various advocates, is just as anti-communist because in all its variants it denies that mankind has a communist future, and insists on the prospect of a growing “convergence” between socialism and capitalism. The very concept of convergence has been borrowed from biology, and literally means a growing similarity because of similar conditions.

p In contrast to the old and primitive methods of uncouth and straightforward anti-communism, which used no other colours but black and white and depicted the capitalist world as a paradise on earth and the socialist world as a realm of poverty and human bondage, the men who propound the theory of convergence have radically changed the style and form of their reasoning. Starting from the “one industrial society” theory and its main conclusion that there is allegedly already much similarity between socialism and capitalism, the advocates of the convergence theory suggest the conclusion that this similarity is bound to grow until both systems merge in a synthesis which is to be an embodiment of the best features of both systems.

p The need to combine a forced recognition of the successes of socialism while trying to discredit it (otherwise this would not be a bourgeois theory) impells the advocates of the convergence theory to engage in a very subtle falsification, which it is not always very easy to discern. Thus, while acknowledging the successes of socialism they at once ascribe them to the growing “similarity” between socialism and capitalism, to an imaginary process of “convergence” between these two diametrically opposite social systems.

The theory of convergence, including as it does some “recognition” of socialism, makes use of the growing sympathies for socialism among the working people in the capitalist countries, suggesting that capitalism is likewise a

104 progressive system which is being “socialised”, as a system which is “near socialism”. This is designed to erode the foundations of the class struggle involving masses of men against capitalism, and to facilitate the advocacy of the capitalist way of development for the newly liberated countries.

p However, the whole carefully camouflaged business is exposed by the concrete characteristic of the “synthesis” of the hybrid society which allegedly arises as a result of this famous convergence. It turns out that it is to lead all the countries to no more than a slightly “improved” capitalism, and is therefore to help to restore capitalism in the socialist countries. Thus, the theory of convergence is aimed against the growing superiority of socialism over capitalism, something the ideologists of the bourgeoisie cannot, of course, admit.

p This theory is advocated by men of varying political orientation, like the liberal-minded bourgeois professors, who sincerely censure the bellicose anti-communist calls for a crusade against the socialist countries and the prospect of a world thermonuclear war, and who want peaceful cooperation between states with differing social systems.

p But it is also advocated by rabid anti-communists, whose main hope in the fight against socialism is to undermine it from inside by means of the so-called bridge-building policy, that is, the utmost use of economic, cultural and scientific ties for political and ideological infiltration of the socialist countries for hostile purposes.

p Among those who advocate this theory are philosophers, sociologists, economists, publicists, career “Sovietologists” and “Marxologists”.

p The American economist, Buckingham, for instance, insists that the “practical, working economic systems are becoming more alike than different” so that their convergence could “help to pave the way for a single, world-wide economic system in the future”. J. K. Galbraith, the wellknown US economist, declared in his Reith Lectures on the BBC in November and December 1966 that there was evidence of a strong tendency to mutual convergence between the different industrialised societies. The Dutch economist, Jan Tinbergen, also stressed the tendency of the two systems to converge, adding that both were moving 105 towards a system which was better than either pure capitalism or pure socialism in the old sense.  [105•1 

p The American sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, has put forward the theory of an “integral type of society”. He wrote: “I am inclined to think that... the dominant type of the emerging society and culture is likely to be neither Capitalistic, nor Communistic, but a type of sui generis which we can designate as the Integral type. This type will be intermediary between the Capitalist and the Communist orders and the ways of life. It is going to incorporate most of the positive values and to be free from serious defects of each type.”  [105•2  In another work, Sorokin wrote about the “possible emergence of a new integral order in West and East” and the “mutual convergence of the United States and Soviet Russia”, so that the “mixture of East-West cultural values, ideas, institutions, patterns and mores will continue to increase.”  [105•3 

p The publicist, Jean Marabini, in his book The USSR in the Year 2000, savs the same thing: “These two antagonistic countries (the USSR and the USA—Y. M.} are in fact moving towards a type of society which if not the same is at any rate similar because socialism is evolving towards capitalism and capitalism towards socialism.”  [105•4 

p What, in that case, will this “synthesis” have, according to the advocates of convergence, as it results from the urge of capitalism and socialism to embrace each other? It turns out that the “socialisation of capitalism” and the “liberalisation of socialism” are to form a hybrid economic system which will have adopted from socialism the economic equality of individuals, workers’ control over production and economic planning, and from capitalism its private property in the means of production, profit as the incentive to production, and the play of market forces as a regulator of exchange and distribution. Consequently, this will in no sense be a “synthesis” of fundamentally opposite systems (the very idea that such a synthesis is possible is Utopian), but an “improved” variant of capitalism. Consequently, the synthesis of 106 capitalism and socialism is to take place on a capitalist basis, on the basis of private property in the means of production. To be more precise, “convergence” is to result in the restoration of capitalism in the socialist countries, and this is made amply clear, for instance, by Buckingham who writes: “... Three of the four foundations of capitalism ... seem likely to be carried over from pure capitalism and incorporated into the newly emerging economic system. First, private property in capital plant and equipment.... Second, economic incentives and profit motivation.... Third, the market system is everywhere reasserting itself as the principal mechanism for controlling the allocation of goods and services.”  [106•1 

p The advocates of the convergence theory insist that evolution towards this goal is proceeding mainly in industry and economy. Thus, Galbraith and the reformist theorist, Jan Tinbergen, say that industrial techniques tend to modify the organisation of production, something that is allegedly bound to reduce the distinctions between the two economic systems.

p The main factors behind this evolution are held to be the following: 1) planning, 2) professionalisation of management, and 3) growing material welfare. These factors are erroneously seen as stimulating convergence because they are taken in the abstract, undifferentiated, formalised, out of the context of the fundamentally distinct socio-economic systems, on the basis of which they acquire a different character.

p Is it possible on the basis of the capitalist system to engage in planning on the scale and with the content that planning has under socialism? Of course, not. In capitalist conditions, planning inevitably narrows down to the scale of the individual enterprises or of monopoly associations, but never of society as a whole. Concerning government planning programmes in the capitalist countries, these are essentially no more than recommendations and forecasts which are never binding on the private corporations. Of course, there is an objective requirement for planning both under capitalism and under socialism, considering the present level of development of the productive forces and the social 107 character of production, but the potentialities for putting this requirement into practice depend directly on the nature of socio-economic relations.

p Some bourgeois ideologists believe that one factor going in favour of convergence is the “professionalisation of management”, under which the running of social affairs both in the capitalist and in the socialist countries allegedly passes into the hands of the specialists, technocrats and bureaucrats, and all of this tends to even out the distinctions between the two systems. The English economist, Peter Wiles, says that this is promoted by “empirical professional temper, the daily contact with fact”.  [107•1  Actually, the attempt to present the administration of society as some purely technical business is untenable, because it tends to change fundamentally with the change in social relations. Under capitalism, the activity of “managers” is determined by the class interests of the ruling classes, and this can never be otherwise.

p Concerning the next factor—rising material welfare among the masses—it is well known that capitalism and socialism have not only diametrically opposite systems of production but also systems of distribution. Whereas the capitalist system, based on exploitation, constantly reproduces massive deprivation, on the one hand, and waste and luxury, on the other, socialism is developing towards real abolition of social inequality, towards distribution organised on rational lines, and towards the satisfaction not only of men’s material but also of their spiritual requirements.

p The advocates of the convergence theory refer to the economic reforms in the socialist countries, alleging that the increased attention being given in these countries to the problems of efficiency, profit, profitability and the development of commodity-money relations is evidence that they are switching to the capitalist way. These arguments, like all the others put forward by the advocates of this theory, ignore this basic objective fact: the basically antithetical foundations of capitalism and socialism, which make the very proposition of convergence unrealistic and Utopian. How is it possible for a socio-economic system based on social property in the means of production to unite with a system based on private property and exploitation? The 108 fact that economic categories like profit, profitability, and commodity-money relations are similar in formal terms does nothing to change this fundamental antithesis between capitalism and socialism, because, for instance, under capitalism commodity-money relations result in a reproduction of capitalist relations of production and operate spontaneously, whereas under socialism they are used consciously and only for the purpose of strengthening socialist relations of production.

p Among the objective phenomena of which the theory of convergence gives a distorted picture are undoubtedly, on the one hand, the material prerequisites of socialism, which mature within the entrails of capitalism, and on the other, the high level of development of the productive forces in the socialist countries.

p The growing socialisation of the economy in the capitalist countries leads to no more than quantitative change, a change in the degree of socialisation. This process provides visual evidence of the fact that the productive forces naturally require to be socialised, and that they are hemmed in by the fetters of capitalist society.

p However, the growing economic role of the state under capitalism does not proceed in the interests of the people but of the monopolies, and while the separation between capital as a function and capital as property—especially characteristic of present-day capitalism—does prove that society has no need of the capitalists, it does essentially nothing to change the system of the relations of production under capitalism. These relations can be changed only by a socialist revolution which puts political power into the hands of the working class and establishes a fundamentally new socio-political system. That is why the new phenomena characteristic of capitalism on which the theorists of convergence speculate do not at all prove that any kind of “transformation” has been taking place within the entrails of capitalism as a result of which capitalism ceases to be capitalism.

p Nor is there any more ground to say that socialism is also being transformed. Of course, the socialist states are not isolated from the capitalist states. They are linked with the capitalist world in a diversity of economic, political, cultural and scientific ties, which they willingly develop but only in the interests of socialism. These interests, let us note, make 109 imperative—and do not rule out objectively—the struggle between the two socio-economic systems, the two political systems, the two opposite ideologies. At the same time, this struggle is closely connected with co-operation in the most diverse spheres, but this is co-operation only on the basis and in the interests of social progress. Is it, for instance, possible to co-operate for the purpose of strengthening peace, without at the same time fighting against revanchism, militarism, and the preparation and starting of aggressive anti-popular wars? This vital and real dialectics of struggle and co-operation is frequently misunderstood by the liberal elements in the capitalist countries, who often metaphysically contrast struggle and co-operation as being mutually exclusive, as abstract opposites. However, neither abstract struggle nor abstract co-operation is to be found in life. The socialist nations co-operate with all the progressive elements in the countries of the capitalist West. They make a point of learning even from capitalism everything that can be used on the basis of socialism and in the interests of socialism, but not, of course, the principles of the capitalist economy, politics and ideology.

p An acute struggle between the two opposite systems is going forward in the modern world. In the course of this struggle the reactionary forces seek to use every channel of existing ties and contacts between the socialist and the capitalist countries for their subversive anti-socialist activity, primarily for the purpose of undermining the main instrument of socialist and communist construction, the socialist state and its leading force, the Communist Party.

p The thesis about the growing similarity of economic processes in the capitalist and in the socialist countries is also designed to back up the conclusion that the political system in the socialist countries does not “correspond” to their economic system, a conclusion clearly formulated by the well-known anti-communist expert, Robert Conquest, in an article in the US anti-communist journal, Problems of Communism. Advocating convergence, he stresses that the “USSR is a country where the political system is radically and dangerously inappropriate to its social and economic dynamics  [109•1 .”

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p Consequently, the advocates of convergence have hopes of radical change in the socialist countries. The theory of convergence is essentially designed to fortify the reactionary utopia about the possibility, and even the inevitability, of a “peaceful” spread of the capitalist system to the socialist countries. This is frankly admitted by anti-communist ideologists Brzezinski and Huntington, who write: “The widespread theory of convergence assumes that the fundamentally important aspects of the democratic system (meaning capitalism—Y. M.) will be retained after America and Russia ’converge’ at some future, indeterminate historical juncture___ The theory sees the Communist Party and its monopoly of power as the real victims of the historical process: both will fade away—most theories of the so-called convergence in reality posit not convergence but submergence of the opposite system.”  [110•1 

p All that needs to be added here is that this process of “submergence” of socialism by capitalism is expected primarily to “erode” the economic system of socialism.

p A different sequence of anti-socialist processes is envisaged by those who advocate the “evolutionary” theory. This is essentially an attempt to substantiate the prospect of the destruction of the world socialist system and the foundations of socialism through the operation of factors within the socialist countries working in an anti-socialist direction, with the active role of the imperialist states directing the activity of the anti-socialist forces. This political theory, whose main accent is “evolution” of the ideology and political organisation of society in the socialist countries, includes a detailed elaboration of the purposes and means of such “transformation” both in the international and in the internal political plane. In the international political plane the idea is to strive for the utmost promotion of “polycentrism” of the socialist system, encouraging all the centrifugal tendencies. In the internal political plane, the primary role goes to the establishment of political “pluralism” which is being advocated under the hypocritical pretext of “liberalisation” and “democratisation” of the political organisation of society in the socialist countries.

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p The main contours of the “evolution” theory have been best sketched out by Brzezinski in his books, The Soviet Bloc. Unity and Conflict  [111•1  Political Power: USA/USSR. Convergence or Evolution?,  [111•2  Alternative to Partition. For a Broader Conception of America’s Role in Europe  [111•3  and Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics,  [111•4  and in many articles in various journals.  [111•5 

p A highly important aspect of the “evolution” theory is the line of “transformation” laid down by the ideologists of imperialism, rather, the sequence of desirable changes, ranging from changes in ideology and politics to changes in the whole socio-economic system, instead of from economic changes to a subsequent “transformation” of ideology and the political system, as the theory of convergence, for instance, suggests. Brzezinski has designated the convergence theory as “anti-Soviet Marxism” and says that if the muchvaunted “democratisation” is to be achieved there is need above all for “positive political reforms”, primarily the abolition of the “ideological and political monopoly of the Communist Party”.  [111•6 

p The introduction of so-called political pluralism (that is, a system of contending and competing, including “opposition”, political parties) which is being advocated in and camouflaged by demagogic talk about “new models” of socialism is nothing more than a plan for a fundamental change in the political organisation of society in the socialist countries, liquidation of true socialist democracy and its substitution by the famous “democratic socialism”.

p The first and main target in this comprehensive (political and ideological) subversive activity is to eliminate the leading role of the Communist Party in the country’s political, social, cultural and socio-economic life. The exponents of the “evolution” theory present the anti-social elements as “democratic” forces and the vehicles of national 112 tradition, while the Communist Party is declared to be a reactionary force. Brzezinski asserts that the Party has become a drag on social progress.  [112•1  Because Brzezinski sees “social progress” as restoration of capitalism it is quite natural for him to direct his attacks against the Communist Party. The Communist Party’s leading role in society and its organisational unity, and—what is most important—its unflinching loyalty to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and the interests of the people are well-known to frustrate every effort on the part of imperialist reaction to turn the tide of history.

p In his Alternative to Partition, Brzezinski stressed that “the most desirable sequence of change would begin with the internal liberalisation”, that is, activisation of anti-Party, anti-Marxist, anti-socialist and anti-popular forces in the socialist countries. When lecturing in Prague in June 1968, Brzezinski set out a programme of “liberalisation”, urging the destruction of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and abolition of the militia and the state security organs. At a closed sitting at the Institute for International Politics in Prague on June 14, 1968, he declared that in moden developed society Leninism had outlived itself. Commenting on the activity of Western theorists in Czechoslovakia, Berliner Zeitung said: “They are now putting into practice what they have been presenting only in theoretical terms: Johnson’s policy of ’bridge-building’, the ’new-Ostpolitik’ of Kiesinger and Brandt, whose purpose is to wrest, if possible, one socialist country after another from their common front.”  [112•2 

p Brzezinski writes that 20 years after the war old political cultures are coming to the surface in Czechoslovakia and that this is a highly creative adaptation of socialism to the traditional values and the democratic way of action which has had its traditions in Czechoslovakia.  [112•3  Consequently, the aim of the internal political recipes advocated by Brzezinski and other theorists of “evolution” is to re-establish “political cultures” like the counter-revolutionary pities which the popular power had disbanded, and which expressed the class interests of the exploiting social groups that had lost 113 their economic and political power, and to legalise them under the pretext of establishing “democratic socialism”. In the process these men make loud and ringing statements and claim to be champions of democracy, which is a “democracy” that suits imperialism very well. Back in 1966, in an article entitled “Tomorrow’s Agenda”, Brzezinski wrote: “Today, the predominant Western attitude is that Communism will gradually moderate itself, eventually approximating social democracy. . .. The West... relies primarily on the erosive effects of time and the pressures for change within the Communist states themselves.”  [113•1 

p The numerous statements by the advocates of the “evolution” theory and the practice of the reactionary forces warrant the conclusion that imperialist reaction has pinned its hopes and aspirations for political “evolution” on active subversive activity by members of the former counter-revolutionary parties and the socio-reformist elements operating outside the Communist Parties, and even on the activisation of the revisionists operating in the same direction inside the Communist Parties in the countries of the socialist community.

p The emergence of the “evolution” theory and the attempts to apply it in practice are an excellent illustration of Lenin’s forecast of the prospects of the class struggle in the transition period. Lenin wrote that “the transition from capitalism to communism takes an entire historical epoch. Until this epoch is over, the exploiters inevitably cherish the hope of restoration, and this hope turns into attempts at restoration. ... The overthrown exploiters . . . throw themselves with energy grown tenfold, with furious passion and hatred grown a hundredfold, into the battle for the recovery of the ’paradise’. ... In the train of the capitalist exploiters follow the wide sections of the petty bourgeoisie, with regard to whom decades of historical experience of all countries testify that they vacillate and hesitate, one day marching behind the proletariat and the next day taking fright at the difficulties of the revolution; that they become panic-stricken at the first defeat or semi-defeat of the workers, grow nervous, run about aimlessly, snivel, and rush from one camp into the other.”  [113•2  These are the social forces and 114 elements which provide the basis on which the imperialist reactionaries rely in their hopes for “evolution” in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.

p In addition, account should also be taken of the existence in these countries of persons “who defend capitalism ideologically and not from selfish class motives, and continue to believe in the non-class nature of the ’democracy’, ’equality’ and ’liberty’ in general that they preach”  [114•1  and also of those who retreat “in quest of fashionable reactionary philosophical doctrines, captivated by the tinsel of the socalled last word in European science, and unable to discern beneath this tinsel some variety of servility to the bourgeoisie”.  [114•2 

p What then is the line of reasoning adopted by Brzezinski, one of the leading exponents of the “evolution” theory?

p He starts with the slanderous assertion that the political organisation of Soviet society is “totalitarian”, and that this helps it to “follow a trail blazed by centuries of earlier Russian political tradition”.  [114•3  This allegedly conservative organisation of society, marked by ideological conformity, is contrasted with the prospect of democratic “pluralism”, which Brzezinski believes must arise in consequence of “ideological erosion”.  [114•4  The main instrument of this erosion is the emergence of “the increasing diversity in ideological emphases” which threatens “the universal validity of even the Soviet ideology”  [114•5  As a result, the authority of communism as the sole scientific theory is allegedly discredited. We find that the stake on revisionism is a component element of the theory of “evolution”. The publishers of Ghita Jonescu’s The Politics of the European Communist States  [114•6  emphasise the importance of the political differences in the East European communist countries and the alleged tendencies there for these countries to become more European than communist. “Pluralisation” is suggested as the most reliable way of achieving this goal.

p The forms of political structure in the socialist countries 115 are diverse and are the result of a blend of universal objective regularities governing the development of socialism and the specific concrete historical conditions.

p These forms of political structure, their character and functions depend on the class content of political power in the socialist countries and on the specific national conditions in which they arise, on concrete political (objective and subjective) factors. While these forms vary, the general regularities governing socialist construction, which spring from the similarity of socio-economic structure in the countries at the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, remain unchanged. Among the general regularities are above all these: leadership of the mass of working people by the working class, with the Marxist-Leninist Party as its nucleus; solidarity of the working class of a given country with the working class of other countries—proletarian internationalism; defence of socialist gains against encroachments by external and internal enemies.

p In class content, political power in the countries building socialism in the transition period is a “specific form of class alliance between the proletariat, the vanguard of the working people, and the numerous non-proletarian strata of the working people (petty bourgeoisie, small proprietors, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, etc.), or the majority of these strata, an alliance against capital, an alliance whose aim is the complete overthrow of capital, complete suppression of the resistance offered by the bourgeoisie as well as of attempts at restoration on its part, an alliance for the final establishment and consolidation of socialism”.  [115•1 

p This means that any multi-party system in the socialist countries is based on co-operation between the working class, the peasantry and the working intelligentsia in their struggle for common goals, which are socialist goals. That is why there is no place in such a system for “opposition” parties, or for any of the recipes proposed by the advocates of political “pluralism”. It is the imperialist reactionaries and their henchmen, who have a solid stake in legalising the activity of anti-socialist elements, and letting loose in the political arena forces seeking to undermine the socialist system and switching it to other lines that are eager to 116 introduce this kind of political “democracy” and “liberalisation”. For understandable reasons, such aims are covered up with claims of concern for the development of criticism, initiative, grass-roots action, expression of creative potentialities, etc. But is socialist democracy against developing the creative initiatives of broad masses of people, against the use of such a mighty weapon as criticism in the interests of socialism, in the interests of social progress? Of course, it is not. But it is in the interests of the people, in the interests of genuine democracy to develop only the kind of criticism that helps to consolidate socialism instead of unhinging its fundamental pillars: the leading role of the Communist Party, the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, social property, and socialist principles of management.

p Lenin wrote: “Now that the proletariat has won political power and a higher type of democracy is being put into effect in the Soviet Republic, any step backward to bourgeois parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy would undoubtedly be reactionary service to the interests of the exploiters, the landowners and capitalists.”  [116•1 

p In his speech at the meeting to mark the Centenary of the birth of V. I. Lenin, L. I. Brezhnev declared: “We shall never agree to the ’development of democracy’ which is being strongly urged upon us by bourgeois ideologists and their Right-wing opportunist assistants, who show such zeal in trying to recast socialism in their own, bourgeois mould. We have our own, truly democratic traditions, which have stood the test of time. We shall safeguard, preserve, develop and improve these traditions.

p “No matter how our adversaries may wring their hands over the ’imperfection’ of socialism, no matter what touchingconcern they may display for its ’improvement’ and ’ humanisation’, we repeat with pride Lenin’s words about proletarian, socialist democracy being a million times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy. Our state was, is and will continue to be a state of the working people, a state for the working people, a state which is governed by the working people.”  [116•2 

p The main obstacle in the way of “ideological erosion” is 117 the communist consciousness of the builders of socialism, their loyalty to communist ideals, their scientific outlook, and their profound conviction that Marxist-Leninist ideas are correct.

p It is a key task of the ideologists and the practitioners of anti-communism to try to undermine this conviction, and their purpose is directly served by the next anti-communist doctrine, that of “de-ideologisation”. The concept of “deideologisation” first appeared on the pages of the Western press and in speeches by bourgeois ideologists somewhere in the mid-1950s, and in the 1960s became one of the fashionable bourgeois theories.

p The concept of “de-ideologisation” has been worked out in detail in a number of special works and articles (notably the books: Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology. On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties; Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intelligentsia; and Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man. The Social Bases of Politics) and this gives ground for some conclusions about its content and class essence.

p The theory of “de-ideologisation” starts from the conclusion that in the present-day conditions, in this age of the scientific and technical revolution, ideology becomes superfluous and tends to wither away. This is an attempt to speculate on the development of science and technology in the modern world and to distort the social effects of this development.

p The bourgeois theorists declare technology to be the new ideology. Social consciousness, which is allegedly directly affected by technological development, is deprived of social content. Actually, however, technology does not have an automatic or mechanical effect on the content of social ideas, but acts on them through the medium of economic relations.

Bourgeois ideologists assert that as a result of technological development consumption becomes man’s primary concern in industrial society. Actually, however, the development of men’s requirements and interests depends not only on technological progress, but mainly on the relations of production which prevail in society. Under socialism, the steadily rising material standards of all citizens do not in any sense turn them into bondmen of things or make the acquisition of things the sole purpose of life. The consumer

118 mentality cannot be and is not characteristic of the builders of socialism.

p In application to capitalism “de-ideologisation” is another form of advocacy of modern capitalism because those who propound it (in the spirit of the theorists of the “one industrial society”, “stages-of-growth” and convergence) seek to cover up the class nature of capitalism behind a front of an allegedly democratic industrial society organised on rational lines in which “purely scientific” methods of management and organisation of society come to the fore, so that ideology dies a natural death. It will be easily seen that this idea is patently ideological, despite the negative “de”, because its authors present state-monopoly capitalism as a “model” to be imitated, and the methods used by bourgeois social science as purely scientific methods.

p State-monopoly capitalism is presented as the crowning achievement of social development. The US sociologist S. Lipset, for instance, declares that “the fundamental political problems of the industrial revolution have been solved. ... Democracy is not only or even primarily a means through which different groups can attain their ends or seek the good society; it is the good society itself in operation”  [118•1 . Intensive ideologisation and acute conflict, he says, are characteristic of such societies wherein the emerging classes and groups fight for their rights inasmuch as they are deprived of political, social and economic privileges; but this conflict ends when they receive full rights of “citizens”. Consequently, as applied to capitalism, the “end of ideology” is derived from an imaginary absence of ideological conflicts between various social classes in capitalist society. Daniel Bell, another theorist, writes that the “workers, whose grievances were once the driving energy for social change, are more satisfied with the society than the intellectuals”.  [118•2 

p Another line of reasoning is also used to back up the conclusion about the end of ideology in the capitalist countries.

p The industrial society is characterised by the technical approach to nature and activity, says Bell. Lipset, Bell, 119 Shiels and other US sociologists hold that social science should be regarded as a politically and ideologically neutral discipline, that it should deal with the facts and not with their assessment. The starting point there is the apology of the empiricism practised by bourgeois sociology and the attempts to present it as the standard of “the scientific approach”. But, first, is this such a scientific approach to the “facts” as the bourgeois scientists claim? Let us bear in mind that what they study and assess is not so much objective processes as opinions, feelings and the mentality of men. Furthermore, they are usually retained by government agencies or private corporations to collect the facts on matters which are of interest to their “clients”, and this means that these facts are collected for a specific class purpose. Even a purely empirical description of existing phenomena essentially impels bourgeois sociologists to acknowledge them as “correct” and “necessary”, that is, ultimately to engage in apologetics in favour of the actual state of affairs. As for the call to refrain from assessments in social analysis, this allegedly being “unscientific” and ideological, the fact is that assessments tend to diifer. An assessment of social phenomena in the light of Marxist-Leninist science is simultaneously scientific, strictly objective and is carried out in the party spirit.

p In application to socialism, the “de-ideologisation” idea is the product of the number of quite definite ideological and political tendencies characterising the present stage of the ideological struggle. Above all it is aimed against MarxismLeninism. First, its propagandists seek to undermine the authority and influence of Leninist ideology in socialist society on the strength of “purely scientific” conclusion to the effect that in our age ideology is simply superfluous. Second, it is unequivocally aimed at creating favourable conditions for bourgeois ideology to fill the “vacuum”. In their hopes of stripping science, above all the social sciences, in the socialist countries of Marxist-Leninist ideas, bourgeois ideologists expect this to open the way for an “infiltration” of ideas, and for bringing socialist ideology closer to Western concepts. At this point, the “de-ideologisation” theory merges with another bourgeois concept, namely, that Marxism is “obsolete”. Professor Henry Aiken of Harvard University declares: “Now the primary target of our contemporary Western anti-ideologists is, of course, Marxism. 120 And in prophesying the end of ideology, it is the end of Marxism of which they mainly dream.”  [120•1 

p Bell seeks to prove that any ideology is incompatible with the industrial society and that “de-ideologisation” is also under way in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries. He asserts that Soviet society seeks to be rid of communist ideology. Both the economic measures and discussions in philosophy, literature and the natural sciences, he claims, all signify a repudiation of Marxist-Leninist teaching, and a return to various traditions of Western thinking, like naturalism, positivism and the philosophy of science. This reveals two tendencies in the bourgeois ideologists’ efforts to interpret the development of Soviet science: on the one hand, it is wishful thinking, and on the other, an attempt to exaggerate or present as typical various phenomena which are not in any sense characteristic of Soviet social science as a whole.

p The “de-ideologisation” theory as a whole is designed to obscure the fundamental qualitative distinction between bourgeois ideology and socialist, scientific, Marxist-Leninist ideology. Its advocates seek to equate any ideology, ideology “in general”, and the unscientific and false approach, and in this sense echo the idea that Marxism-Leninism is “unscientific”, and various other Right-opportunist revisionist concepts.

p Consequently, “de-ideologisation” is organically woven into the tactics of “creeping” anti-communism, with its doctrine of “bridge-building” and hopes for ideological penetration of the socialist countries, and into the concepts of social development which distort the objective regularities for the purposes of social forces which have outlived their historical term.

p Despite some differences in the line of reasoning, all the theories examined above are ultimately apologetic and extol capitalism. They are all reflections of the futile efforts of the imperialists to lay a kind of ideological foundation for 121 their efforts to refute the law-governed historical process in which capitalism gives way to socialism.

The change in the balance of forces in favour of socialism impels the imperialist reactionaries to seek ever more refined means of political and ideological struggle. The politicians and ideologists of imperialism are obsessed with the idea of restoring capitalism in the socialist world, and that is the basis of their policy.